Guide: How to install Android apps on your Windows 11 PC As Found:

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A few ideas can be found around the Net on How to install Android Apps on Windows 11, this is one of many:

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Guide: How to install Android apps on your Windows 11 PC


Usama Jawad @@UsamaJawad96 · Oct 23, 2021 10:56 EDT7

When Microsoft announced Windows 11 back in June, it made a big deal about support for Android apps via a partnership with the Amazon Appstore. However, this capability was not present in the October 5 launch version of the OS. That said, it appears that the functionality will be coming soon as Microsoft has started testing it in the Beta Channel.

If you're on a device enrolled in the Beta Channel, you might want to give Android apps on Windows 11 a whirl, here's how to do it:

• Make sure you're on a 22000.xxx series build, and that your PC has at least 8GB of RAM and a supported processor (Intel Core i3 8th Generation, AMD Ryzen 3000, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8c, or above). Verify your build number by pressing Win + R, and then typing winver in the textbox. This will open a window showing you your machine's build number. If it's lower than the aforementioned build number, go to Settings > Windows Update to update your PC. In our case, we had to install build 22000.282 in order to proceed.

• Your PC's region must be set to the U.S. Validate that this is so by heading over to Settings > Time & language > Language & region on your Windows PC.

• Make sure that virtualization is enabled on your machine. This process can involve booting into your PC's BIOS, depending on your hardware vendor, and Microsoft recommends that users follow this guide. You can check whether virtualization is enabled on your machine by going to Task Manager > Performance.

• Ensure that you are running Microsoft Store version 22110.1402.6.0 or higher. Check to see if this is the case by heading over to the Microsoft Store's App settings, where you'll see the version number listed near the bottom. If it's lower than the aforementioned version, go to Library > Get updates to trigger an update for the Microsoft Store

• Visit the Amazon Appstore listing on the Microsoft Store using this link.
• Click on Install.
• You will be asked to provide Microsoft diagnostics so it can further enhance its products, but you can opt out if you want. Click on Download.
• Wait for the download to complete, this may take a few minutes depending upon your internet connection.

• Once the download is complete, you'll see an "Open Appstore" button in the same window. Click on it.
• You will see a small dialog box saying "Starting Windows Subsystem for Android...", this will disappear after a couple of seconds.

• Next, you will be asked to create a new Amazon account or sign-in into an existing one. Make sure that whichever account you use is U.S.-based. If you sign in with a non-U.S. account, you'll be shown a message that "The Amazon Appstore is not currently available in your country".

• Once you have signed in with a supported Amazon account, you'll be greeted with the landing page. You'll also be shown a handful of apps and games that you can download. It is important to note that the Amazon Appstore currently only supports a few dozen apps curated by Microsoft and Amazon.

• Click on any app, which will open a dedicated store listing. Click on "Get" to install the app.
• Once the app has finished downloading, click on "Open" to download the app. You can also open it from Windows Search, or the taskbar or the Start menu, if you decide to pin it.

• The app you launch will open in a dedicated window, as can be seen in the screenshot above.

• Lastly, you'll want to know that there is a dedicated Windows Subsystem for Android app silently installed in the background along with the Amazon Appstore too. You can utilize this to configure the behavior of applications and the subsystem according to your needs and can also completely turn it off to conserve system resources.

That's pretty much all there is to it if you want to follow Microsoft's textbook method of installing Android apps on Windows 11 Beta Channel. There are workarounds if you want to install Windows Subsystem for Android on the Dev Channel, other unsupported devices, or even download Google Play services. However, these workarounds are outside the scope of this article and they require you to take responsibility if anything goes awry.

We'll likely see more apps trickle to the Appstore with the passage of time, and Microsoft has also published guidance for developers to ensure that their Android apps work as they expect on Windows 11.

Source:

https://www.neowin.net/news/guide-how-to-install-android-apps-on-your-windows-11-pc/

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Sideload tips for installing ANDROID Apps on Windows 11

There are a growing number of ways to quickly and easily sideload Android apps on Windows 11. Shortly after writing about WSATools, the first Android app sideloader to hit the Microsoft Store, I became aware of a few more apps that do the same thing just as well.

WSA-pacman is described as a package manager and installer that lets you install Android APKs on the Windows Subsystem for Android, while APK-Installer is another Android app installer for Windows. Both are open source applications available for download from GitHub.
WSA-pacman
The Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) is still in preview and only available to members of the Windows Insider program running beta or dev channel builds of Windows 11. While Microsoft makes it easy to install applications by bundling the Amazon Appstore with WSA, only around 50 Android apps are available so far, and even when that number grows, Microsoft and Amazon’s stores likely won’t have all Android apps – the Amazon Appstore has just around half a million apps while the Google Play Store available on most Android phones and tablets has millions.

That’s where sideloading comes in. Android makes it relatively easy to install apps that aren’t downloaded from an app store, and shortly after started a public preview of Android app support for Windows Insiders, I wrote about how you could use command line tools to sideload Android apps that aren’t available from the Amazon Appstore. But the original method involves running command line tools.

Since then, a number of developers have come up with easier solutions that let you do everything with a few mouse clicks thanks to graphical user interfaces.

WSATools may be one of the simplest methods for many users since you can download and install it directly from the Microsoft Store.

But I’ve actually had more luck getting apps to install properly when using WSA-pacman and APK installer. They just take a little more work to set up.
WSA-pacman


WSA-pacman is a lightweight tool that you can download and unzip to a directory on your PC. Then just double-click on the WSA-pacman file to run the app.



It will automatically connect to the Windows Subsystem for Android and set up the Android Debug Bridge for you. Click the Manage Applications or Manage Settings buttons to open the WSA screens for those functions.

In order to install an Android app using WSA-pacman, just download an APK from a trusted source, right-click on the file, and choose “open with.”

Since WSA-pacman doesn’t have an installer that hooks into Windows, you’ll need to first select the “Choose another app” option, then choose “More apps” on the following screen, and then finally scroll down to “Look for another app on this PC” to open a file browser that will you navigate to the folder where the executable is located.

Check the box to always open with this app, though, and you should only have to do this once. After that, you can just double-click on any APK file to open it with the WSA-pacman installer.

Once you do that, you’ll be greeted with a window that provides a little information about which permission the app requires and an “install” button.



Click install to start the process, and in a moment you should see a new screen asking if you’d like to open the app. I found that clicking “open” doesn’t always work, but you should now be able to find the installed app from the Windows Start Menu.
APK-Installer


This is another open source app that, once installed, allows you to double-click on any Android APK to open an installer window.

Like WSA-pacman, the installer will show which permissions an Android app requires in order to run, although it’s listed under “Capabilities” and includes language that’s a little more unwieldy.

Instead of “Files and Media” or “Camera,” for example, the Firefox Nightly APK shows “android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE” and “android.permission.CAMERA.”



But for the most part this utility gets the job done the same way, and even has a box that you can check to optionally automatically launch the Android app once it’s installed. This seems to work much better than the open button in WSA-pacman, at least as of the time this article was published. Both apps are under active development, so things could change in the future.

One frustrating thing about WSA-installer is that the app itself is actually rather cumbersome to install.

The good news is that once it’s done, you don’t need to jump through a lot of hoops to associate APK files with WSA-installer, it will show up in the list of installed Windows applications. The bad news is that the recommended installation process involves:

• Downloading an unzipping the latest installer package (a 250MB .rar file).
• Right-click the Install.ps1 script and choose “Open with Powershell.”
• Follow the instructions, which involve administrative privileges and adding a certificate for the app.
• The first time you run APK Installer, you may also be prompted to download adb (Android Debug Bridge), even if you already have it on your computer.

But once you’ve gone through those steps, APK Installer, just like WSA-pacman, makes installing downloaded Android apps on supported Windows 11 devices as easy as installing any native Windows app.

Keep in mind that not all Android apps will necessarily work properly if they’re sideloaded. For example, apps that require Google Play services won’t function properly unless you jump through some extra hoops to install the Google Play Store and Google Services Framework, along with other Google apps and services.

https://liliputing.com/2021/11/sideload-android-apps-on-windows-11-with-these-open-source-apps.html